Answers:
- Need for maintenance management
- Maintenance resources
- Decentralised maintenance
- Reliability Centred Maintenance
Need for maintenance management
The main purpose of maintenance management is to ensure that business activities of an organization go unhindered. In an organization, the following are the factors that necessitate a well-defined and efficient maintenance management system to be in place:
- Long-term continuity and survival of business
- Effective and efficient utilisation of organizational resources
- Improving the lifespan of plant and technology
- Prevention of equipment failure
- Reduction in downtime
- Maximising the return on investment (ROI) on assets
- Production of goods at the lowest cost
Maintenance resources
Maintenance resources vary in organizations depending on their requirements, production process, etc. Some of the common maintenance resources used by organizations include machines, maintenance personnel, and materials. The effectiveness of maintenance is completely dependent on the quality of resources utilised. Thus, it is important for an organization to ensure that quality maintenance resources are used. Apart from this, an
organization should accurately determine the type and quantity of resources required for maintenance. This is because shortage of resources would hamper the maintenance program, while excess of resources would incur high cost for an organization.
Decentralised maintenance
According to Fayol, "Everything that goes to increase the importance of the subordinate's role is called decentralisation." Decentralisation refers to the distribution of power and authority among different individuals of an organization. Similarly, in decentralized maintenance, all maintenance functions are reported to the respective area, unit, or departments.
Reliability Centred Maintenance
Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM), also known as asset maintenance, is a process in which assets are maintained so they can be available for use throughout the production process. Please note here assets mean machines and equipment.
The aim of using RCM is to identify the modes of failures and their impact on assets. The primary requirement for proper analysis of failure modes is to acquire complete knowledge of operations and determine the characteristics of equipment failures. The best sources to acquire this knowledge are the people who are involved in maintenance activities; failure
records maintained in the past; and documents of successfully completed maintenance jobs.